Just Ask
by moonlighten
Summary: 1916: England tries to find some peace in the trenches during WWI. Part 16 of the Feel the Fear series.


Another short fic from my platonic-bed-sharing collection that I thought works okay on its own.

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><p><strong>-<br>1916, Western Front, France**

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>Like hunger, tiredness is simply a lie England had trained his body to believe in his infancy so he could ape the habits of his people.<p>

He does not _need_ to sleep any more than he needs to eat, and yet his muscles still ache, his eyes still throb, and he can barely track a thought from one moment to the next. His hands never stop shaking.

(Whenever he does manage to lay his head down for a spell, he does not dream about his land, or the trench – the shells raining down and the blood and the stench and the _despair_ of it– or even about all of his good, brave boys who will never see their homes again. He dreams of roast beef with all the trimmings, of plum pudding and custard, and wakes with his stomach clenched tight and growling; saliva and bile filling his mouth.)

And yet he can't keep a steady hold of his gun this evening. The third time he drops it, he struggles to even find it again. He stoops down, fumbling clumsily across the ground below him, but all he can feel is the coarse wood of duckboards and the ever-present, ubiquitous fucking mud. Tears of frustration well up in his eyes, blurring his already dim vision into irrelevancy.

A hand settles on his back: broad, long fingered and far from gentle.

Scotland's.

"You should go and get some rest," his brother says. "It looks like it's going to be a quiet night for once; you don't need to be out here."

England is unable to recall a single quiet night since they were posted to France, but, considering the source, the lie cannot be a kind one. It can only be pitying.

"Yes, I do," England snaps, twisting his body out and away from under his brother's touch. He lurches upright again, but the sudden movement makes his head swim dizzily.

Scotland catches him before he can overbalance.

He stands solid and unwavering afterwards, because he can easily bear England's slight weight. Even so his breath shortens, sounding somewhat laboured. "You can't win this war on your own, England," he says, fingers clawing deep into the sparse flesh of England's upper arms. "None of us can, no matter how much we might wish it otherwise. We can spare you for a few hours, especially if you're not able to shoot."

England starts to argue his case, but Scotland pays him no heed. Throughout all their centuries of conflict, regardless of his rising power and the union, England has never been able to overcome his brother on a purely physical level. Even at England's peak, Scotland has always been the stronger of the two of them bodily.

So when Scotland takes hold of his hand, England allows himself to be tugged along behind him without further protest. His reserves of stamina have dwindled so much of late that he has none to spare for their usual petty fraternal squabbles.

Most of the time, he's shocked that he has sufficient energy left within himself to continue breathing through the day.

Scotland steers him to one of the cubby holes carved roughly into the side of the trench, and then shoves him towards it, taking care to keep him from banging the top of his head against its roof, but not enough to cushion his fall when he slumps down onto his knees within.

"I'll come fetch you at midnight and not a moment before," Scotland says, in a gruff, parental tone that England has not heard directed his way since at least the twelfth century. "If I see you step so much as a toe out of here before that, there'll be hell to pay. All right?"

"All right," England says meekly, the words little more than a sigh. With a thick musty blanket soft below him, he suddenly realises how insupportable it is to keep moving, to keep talking, to keep doing anything other than burrowing down into it and trying his best to block out the rest of the world for a little while.

Scotland makes a quiet approving noise when England allows himself to collapse onto his back, and then retreats. England listens to his brother's trudging footsteps until they fade away, leaving him in the closest thing to silence it's possible to find in the trench: the distant rattle of gunfire and the low murmur of his men's voices somewhere nearby.

They're not exactly soothing sounds, but they're a new sort of normal, and nothing that should disturb England's enforced peace unduly.

Nevertheless, he cannot settle.

The blanket seems to grow thinner the longer he lies upon it, and he slowly becomes aware of every irregularity in the ground beneath it, every loose stone and broken root, and each one seems to be digging into a particularly tender part of his body. He turns one way and then the other, smoothes the blanket down and then ruckles it up, but comfort remains elusive.

Eventually, he resigns himself to enduring the stubborn, jabbing pressure at both the base of his skull and tailbone, and closes his eyes.

In true darkness, however, his mind stirs into energetic life instead slowing towards sleep. His thoughts stray first towards Wales – recently arrived back at the front; whole and unscarred once more, if only in body – and then, more persistently, towards Scotland, who has likely returned to their position at the parapet by now. England wonders if he can man it efficiently on his own, and if –

The makeshift curtain covering the mouth of the cubby hole is yanked back and someone shuffles inside. England squints towards them, but the darkening twilight outside has robbed the details from their face, rendering them nothing more than a featureless silhouette.

He forces back his disappointed groan, because although he had hoped to spend time alone – a precious rarity in the trenches – even if sleep did continue to elude him, he doesn't want to make the newcomer feel unwelcome. The cubby holes are for the soldiers' benefit, after all; not his. If anything, _he_ is the interloper.

The cubby is a narrow fit for two, so England rolls onto his side and then wriggles forward until his nose is almost touching the damp, loamy soil at its far limit.

"_Merci_," the shadow says, in an aggravatingly familiar drawl.

England's tolerance and good will evaporate in an instant.

"You can fuck right off," he says, glowering fiercely. A fruitless undertaking, given their relative positions, but it serves to lighten his mood slightly all the same. "Go on; shoo. I'm sure you can find somewhere else to laze around in if you look hard enough."

"There is nowhere else." France's voice does not echo back some of his own irritation, as England had thought it would. He sounds nothing but resigned. "Believe me, I would go there if there was, but Scotland said that this was the only cubby which still had some free space."

Notwithstanding his earlier show of concern, England can well believe that Scotland would be spiteful enough to inflict France upon him for no better reason than his own vindictive amusement.

He would not inflict England on France unless he felt he really had no other option, however.

France has looked to be on the verge of collapse for days now; all of the light and life and colour draining away from him until only a grey husk remained. England would have expected him to complain about his rapidly fading looks, just as he had expected him to complain about their deplorable conditions and short rations, but he never did. He keeps his mouth shut and his head down, and just carries on putting one foot in front of the other – day in, day out – like the rest of them. Because it's their duty. Because there's nothing else they _can_ do.

It may still be grudging, but England can't help but admire him for it, all the same.

England presses as close as he can against the wall, freeing up a little more of the blanket. "You'd better keep your hands to yourself," he says.

"I think I'll be able to restrain myself," France says. "You smell like effluent, _Angleterre_."

To England's surprise, the remark does not annoy him as it usually would. Nevertheless, he cannot stop himself from remarking, "So do you."

"I hope that means that you're going to hold yourself to the same promise, then," France says, his voice warming with amusement.

England's scowl returns. "Don't push your luck, Frog."

France chuckles rustily, and then slowly lowers himself, joints creaking, to lie alongside England. Given the close quarters, it's impossible for them to remain entirely separated from one another, and every time one of them exhales, the sharp points of their shoulder blades brush together. The sensation makes England's skin crawl.

He does not anticipate being able to relax now, never mind sleep. It wasn't so long ago, after all, that France would have taken the opportunity presented by a situation like this to slip a knife between his ribs.

Their bosses might have told them that they must become close allies, but such things do not become true simply because humans want them to. They've been at one another's throats for most of their lives, and England doubts he'll ever be able to truly trust France at his word.

He feels exposed, and, besides, he's unused to sleeping so close to another person, so he expects that France's every movement will disturb him; that every sound he makes will be magnified intolerably.

But, instead, there's something oddly reassuring about the weight of another person at his back and the slight warmth of France's body seeping into his own.

England cautiously closes his eyes again. He can hear nothing but his own heartbeat and the soft sound of France's breathing.

Sleep comes quickly.


End file.
